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Live update of respondents worksheet

This worksheet describes how to update the respondents for a live survey created in Snap 10 running on Snap WebHost. You would do this if:

  • You realised that you had seeded the wrong data for respondents that you had already uploaded (for example, their addresses were wrong)
  • You needed to add more respondents for a current survey
  • You wanted to run the survey again with a totally new set of respondents

Background

You can change the respondent list for a survey while the survey is running. This does not delete information about respondents who have already completed the survey.

You can:

  • Add new respondents
  • Change the details of respondents you already have (and possibly add new ones)
  • Delete specified respondents
  • Change to a different list

If you are changing the list of respondents, you need to make sure that the new data has the same amount of details about a respondent as the information held on Snap WebHost. If, for example, the column headings change in the database, uploading the data will not work.

Summary of steps

To update the respondents, you need to:

  1. In Snap, you must have created a database link in Online Survey mode that links to the changed or filtered database from the survey. (You will have created this database link when you created the survey: see setting up a database link.)
  2. In Snap, run the database link to generate the new respondent data file.
  3. In Snap WebHost, upload the new respondent data file to the survey.

Step 1

If you have changed the entries in the database, but everything else remains the same, you can go straight to step 2.

If you wish to create a link to a different database, follow the steps below

  1. Open the survey in Data Entry mode in Snap.
  2. Select File | Database Link to display the Database Linkage dialog box.
  3. Click [New] to create a new database link. The Database Wizard dialog is displayed.
  4. Click on the Online Survey radio button.
  5. Click [Next].The Database linkage dialog is displayed.
  6. Click [Select Database File] and browse to the file containing the respondent IDs and data.

    If you wish to filter the respondents so that this survey is only available to some members of the database, set an appropriate filter condition.

  7. Click [Next].

  8. Complete all the settings as you did for the original database link. Click [Next].

  9. Enter a name for the link and click [Finish].

Step 2: Running the database link

  1. Open the survey in Data Entry mode in Snap.
  2. Select File | Database Link to display the Database Linkage dialog box.
  3. Select the link with the new or updated database
  4. Click [Run] to generate the new respondent data. The Generate New Respondents File dialog appears.

  5. Select the folder where you would like the generated data to be placed and click [OK]. Snap generates the new respondent .dat file, adds it to a zip file for upload and places both of them in the selected folder.

    Generate New Respondents dialog

Step 3: Updating the respondents

Note that these instructions are different between Snap 10 and Snap 9. These instructions describe the procedure for surveys created in Snap 10.

  1. Log in to Snap WebHost.
  2. Select the survey in the list.
  3. Pause the survey.
  4. Click on the Respondents tab. You will see a list of current respondents for the survey and their status.
  5. Click the Upload new respondents link. The Upload Respondents dialog appears.

    Upload respondents dialog

  6. Browse to the zip file of new data.
  7. Select the type of upload you wish to use:
    • Add to add the respondents in the upload to the list (if the respondents are already in the list, they will not be overwritten).
    • Modify to overwrite existing respondents with new information (if the respondents are not already in the list, they will be added).
    • Delete to delete the respondents that you have just uploaded.
    • Update all to change the list of respondents to the list that you have uploaded (new respondents will be added, current respondents will be updated, absent respondents will be deleted).
  8. Click the Upload Archive button.
  9. The respondents list is updated with the new data.

Conclusion

This worksheet has explained how to update the respondents for a survey that you have already uploaded to Snap WebHost.

If you would like more information about database links, see the topic Setting up a database link for seed data, email invites and/or logins. If you would like to find out how to seed data from a database into surveys using a database link, see the topic Using the survey link to seed data into the survey.

If you would like more information on how to update your respondent data automatically, by using an active server page, see the topic Automatic managing of respondents.

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